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Thursday, May 12, 2011

Soul mates over sushi

Today I took a quick break to have lunch with a couple of girlfriends from college, and we went to a pretty good Japanese restaurant near my office for some sashimi and an assortment of dishes. Since I'd been traveling so much lately, I had not seen them in months but they were certainly keeping updated on Travelife via this blog.

"So, what's this about a soul mate?" One of them asked. "That was pretty funny, actually. I could so imagine you not wanting to answer such a question on the way to the airport." She knew me pretty well and she was referring to my recent blog entry about my friend S, who lives in Seoul, who'd proclaimed to the world (or at least she'd proclaimed to me) that she'd finally found her soul mate.

"Yeah, but she says that about once a year, so I take everything she says with a grain of salt," I replied. I'd met about five of my friend's soulmates by now so I wasn't very impressed.

"Is there such a thing? Don't you just make yourself happy with whoever you end up with, and as long as you get along fairly well, that's okay?" Another friend asked.

LOOSE LIPS, SAKE, AND SUSHI AT NOON

Well, for once, I didn't have much trouble with my words. Maybe it was the sake and sushi at 1230 pm. I replied: "Well, I think it's pretty impossible to find someone who's absolutely perfect for you; but if you do, you should consider that 1 in a billion. But it's not so hard to find someone who's at least 75% good for you, and whose other 25% isn't a good fit but it's made up of stuff that you'll be able to live with."

CYNICAL SINCE YESTERDAY

"Since when did you become so cynical? You've been so happily idealistic all this time," Another friend asked. This wasn't true at all, as I personally think I'm more of a realist with a slightly idealistic bent. But obviously, she was clinging to the notion that Prince Charming was around the corner and when he finally arrived to save her from a life of loneliness, he would never let her down and they would live happily forever after. Good luck to her.

"Since yesterday," I said. "And it's not cynicism, it's reality. If you keep looking for a 100% fit, I'll bet good money that you'll never find him."

They never heard my second sentence which, I personally thought, was full of worldly wisdom. Instead, almost in unison, they exclaimed: "Yesterday? What happened yesterday?"

I almost fell over laughing. It was almost too delicious to play along and continue the conversation along this line but I decided to just tell the truth.

"Nothing happened, silly," I replied. "It's just a figure of speech."

"Well, with your never-endingly eventfulTravelife, we never know," one of them said, repeating our magazine tagline. I never replied. And what do you know -- I'm having Japanese again for lunch tomorrow, but hopefully the conversation won't center around soul mates again. Thrice in a week (actually it'll be four times now, but I haven't written about the other time) would be too much -- even for someone who does actually believe in soul mates.